


laws of motion

by copperiisulfate



Category: K (Anime)
Genre: First Meetings, M/M, Pre-Canon, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-04
Updated: 2014-11-04
Packaged: 2018-02-23 23:32:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2559833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/copperiisulfate/pseuds/copperiisulfate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Reisi ascends, continues rising and rising. Mikoto is static, stationary, right up until he falls.</p><p>They meet, briefly, somewhere in between.</p>
            </blockquote>





	laws of motion

**Author's Note:**

> gave up on writing something about them without physics metaphors for once and went full-force experimental kinematics disguised as character/relationship studies (or the other way around?)
> 
> many thanks to lhevette for helping with timeline details; all errors are my own.

 

_**I)  Inertia; objects in a state of rest or motion remain in a constant state of rest or motion until influenced by an external force** _

 

Coming down from the grasp of the slate is not unlike coming down from the clouds, like waking up, like falling from grace, and it’s—  
  
(he opens his eyes and inhales sharp, summer air; the sky is gunmetal blue, clear, on a windy day and the wind breaks against his jacket, blows his hair in his face and he’s still getting used to the way Totsuka cut it)  
  
—somehow strangely fine, comes almost naturally after the first few times. Besides, it wouldn't be like him to dissect the meaning of it, much like dissecting the meaning of the word. As with all words, say it enough and it loses all meaning.

_King._

Someone else might have taken it and become preoccupied, fixated upon the idea, turned it over and over to the point of madness.

It's not that he’s immune, no, not to everything, even if he is immune to a great many things: scratches and illness and hundreds of small everyday misfortunes glide past and do not faze, and he's handed a few greater ones in their place, because the law of conservation is a real thing. He’s forgotten a lot of the white noise from the school classrooms, lost in a blur of napping in filtered sunlight, menthol on rooftops, the smell of fresh-cut grass and chatter in the distance, but this is one that has somehow kept, stuck like a splinter he could never quite dislodge.

The word is like a loaded gun and the gun is made of stone and fire; it’s the size of several apartment complexes stacked on top of one another and it’s cocked and unlocked and pointing below, with him at bullseye.  
  
He thinks of a depth and a radius, all hypothetical, of course, thinks of collision, force of impact, numbers and concepts Kusanagi had tried to drill into him with exasperation, chewing through three pencils the night before an exam. They hurt his head but it’s different now from how it was back then and he shakes it off, clears it out.

He’s twenty one, arms braced against the railing of the penthouse floor of a skyscraper, peeks over his shoulder, tries to estimate the height, the distance below, doesn't think much of it. His body is too hardy for that besides.

The need for contingency plans brews but it’s a quiet thing. The full force of it won’t hit him (sharp, quick, like bullet on a rooftop in another part of this city) for another few years. But the gears will turn, slowly, and soon.

 

*

 

Somewhere, in another city, Munakata Reisi sits in seiza and sips his koicha, hears the sound of his mother’s wind chimes rattle as if hit by a gust.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**_II) The net force of an object is the product of its mass and acceleration_ **

 

The Blue King enters in the midst of the fall of a kingdom, like the answer to a prayer, and certainly, he is, something like the answer to thousands.

Even so, no one’s quite sure about him and no one knows all that much about him. Many don’t care as long as he  _fixes_  it, all the hearts and hopes and legacies that were lost and broken in the years before him. There are others, of course, who care and compare him silently to his predecessors, all their successes and all their failings. They keep a close eye on the new king.  
  
Days and weeks and months go by and it becomes increasingly apparent that the young man is good luck for the clan. He rises and the kingdom rises with him, in all ways but especially morale, right from the day of his inauguration as Captain of the special forces in the downtown square, and then, months later, when he is on the television and all the papers, always discretely sidestepping and bypassing without direct comment. They’re trying to get him to advertise everything from charitable causes to the newest designer label but he smiles and politely declines, keeps to his business.

(He’s not unaware of all the eyes on him. Briefly, he considers if it would be more strategic to pretend that he is, or to ignore them altogether.

Quick calculations decide for him to hold his head high, wear a smile, keep his cards close and meet their gazes head on.)

He’s younger than they counted on, more clever, more beautiful, more ruthless than they counted on. He has rearranged the fibre of SCEPTER4 within months of his captaincy. They call him efficient, disciplined, quick like the blade at his hip. Others call him shrewd, whisper, _cold_ , _manipulative,_   _with ulterior motives, secret agendas, et cetera, et cetera_.

Everyone agrees that he speaks with such ease, such control, that it’s easy to forget how young he is.

Statistics for violent crimes trend down for the first time in years, and he is not easy in his dealings or his justice. The sight of him makes the memory of Habari Jin seem soft and lenient by comparison.

 

*

  
It’s mid-day on a Tuesday that Suoh Mikoto first sees the Blue Sword of Damocles hovering above the city's west end.

It glitters in the sun, pristine, immaculate.   
  
The thought is distant and hazy now but he's thinking about gravity again, of how much that thing might weigh, of numbers, free fall downwards, again, all hypothetical (decidedly, is not thinking of his own).

Distantly, he thinks of Anna, who is at the bar, miles away and nowhere near it, and releases a breath he might have been holding for ages.

 

*

 

Days later, he pieces it together. It's after the inauguration, a cloudy day, once the sea of blue coats has parted and dispersed and a man stands alone in a mostly empty town square. The traffic had been diverted for the ceremony and now the cops are at work, restoring the status quo. The Blues assist, probably taking responsibility, or being outstanding citizens, or something or other.

The one whom Mikoto gathers is their new king has his back turned. He's looking up at the tower, long coat blowing in the wind behind him. Mikoto follows his gaze to find the clan's emblem emblazoned in blue and silver on enormous hanging banners, watches the scene from his vantage point of a storefront, back against brick and glass, contemplates if it’s worth piecing together what this is going to mean.

He figures it cant change much really. Kusanagi has been good at dealing with cops. Kusanagi will probably have a field day with this one. _King of cops,_  Mikoto smirks.

Besides, there were five others somewhere, weren't there? Five kings, scattered here and there, and a great lot of difference  _that_  had made other than how they did little aside from make one mess after another. Golds and their sick experiments, Greens making trouble on Homra’s turf, and Silver and wherever the hell he was nowadays, up in the sky or whatever stories Totsuka had heard and relayed.

Mikoto leaves when it starts to rain, doesn't know what he would have said to the guy anyway.

_Congratulations? Welcome to the club? It's got mixed perks. On one hand, you're powerful. On the other—hey, you’ll probably die young and pretty._

Or, well, maybe that was just  _him_ since, apparently, Gold was something like a thousand years old. 

 

*

 

The first time he sees a glimpse of his face is on the television in the bar the next day and the man seems to be dodging a reporter.

Out of uniform and anywhere else and the guy could pass as a desk-clerk, all stiff back, fake smile, and glasses.

 _Well done_ ,  _slate_ , Mikoto thinks, wry.

He doesn’t miss how Anna grows silent, clings a little tighter to Totsuka, who runs a hand through her hair.

Kusanagi casts a quick look Mikoto's way and Mikoto really does not want to think about that.

_What now indeed._

They're all waiting for the other shoe to drop. And—

Mikoto doesn't _know_ , doesn't _care_. Why is the universe expecting him to react when it doesn't fucking  _matter?_

He can't say it out loud because Kusanagi's always been good at calling bullshit and so he finishes his shot and sets the glass on the bar and he gets the hell out of there.

 

*

 

When they stand, face to face, it’s—

not anything like love at first sight, not at  _fucking all_ , or even pure unadulterated loathing—though that would probably have been easier, later—but it’s _something_.

Peripheral vision blurs a little and it lasts no more than a split-second but feels like—lifetimes that don’t belong to either of them, flashing before their eyes, and it could be yet another quirk of the slate, could be all in their heads, could be dehydration and heat exhaustion if kings were susceptible to that kind of thing.

It’s nothing as pretentious as foresight or nostalgic like hindsight.

It’s just—

the air is different somehow, and then, before they have a chance to speak or come to blows (collide)—

the stitch in time evens itself out like it never took place at all.

And maybe it didn't. Maybe it's just—

There’s too much noise afterwards, or maybe they’re just paying attention now, to the sirens in the distance and people’s voices growing clearer as the strain initially responsible for the explosion is taken into custody.

The crowds thin out behind them until they’re more or less alone and the Blue King is the first to speak as the Red King closes his eyes, breathes in, exhales.

 

*

 

"The Third King, Suoh Mikoto," he says. "Leader of the Red Clan, Homra."

Mikoto doesn't question the fact that, _of course_ , the government has a file on him. He also knows perfectly well who the man before him is, but asks, regardless, "Who wants to know?"

"Munakata Reisi of SCEPTER4. Rumour has it you’re going to give me trouble but I don’t like to make assumptions. Seems as if we’ll get along fine if we stay out of each other’s way."

Mikoto eyes him. He doesn't like to make a habit of making acquaintances. The kids in Homra are already more than he bargained for, and now, this is— 

Mikoto grins, bares his teeth. “Sounds like a plan, Munakata Reisi.”

It’s funny, really, how they are all terrific lies that they never mean to tell.

 

*

 

In the weeks and even _months_ after his inauguration, the Blue King is the talk of the town, and the town encompasses Bar HOMRA, so there’s only so much of Kusanagi and Totsuka’s gossip Mikoto can take before he makes his way out for a cigarette.

Something’s brewing, quiet, steady. It’s in the air and Mikoto follows the stream of his smoke with his eyes, ends up watching the clouds.

 _Of course,_ he’s the talk of the town, an example, a paragon of a king, a legend already. Mikoto doesn't even know him but there’s a part of him that wants to throttle him already. He could care less about making history, about the strings and frills that come with it. Besides, Mikoto is hardly a king the way the Blue King is a king. He sleeps in a bar and has kids crowd around downstairs and make noise. Every now and then they’ll get into fights and he’ll bail them out but, more often than not, even that’s Kusanagi and Totsuka’s territory.

He’s always been all trial and error, with more error, not much more than a decorated figurehead, a needlessly revered mantelpiece display, just here, just given this. There was no instruction manual and it generally didn't matter.

And then, there's this king who appeared out of some vortex, resurrected the Blue Clan singlehandedly, and made it all look so fucking _easy_.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**_III) The forces of two bodies on each other are always equal and directed in opposite directions_ **

 

The concept of the Swords of Damocles is still difficult for most people to grasp. It's difficult enough for the wielders at times so the population at large can hardly be faulted.

It's a physical manifestation of power, of control or lack thereof, a gift from the slate, a curse from Weismann himself.

But all of that is easy to forget in the heat of a good fight, the kind to set blood on fire.

There’s something that bristles in the air when the two of them appear at once, Red and Blue, and everyone now knows to stand back, to clear the area. Sure, it's a stand-off between Shizume’s most powerful gang and the Gold King’s special police force, and it's becoming less unusual but the property damage is still spectacular and takes a long time to recover and rebuild.

More often though, it just becomes King versus King and their clans clear out and away.

It comes to the point where they hardly need reasons.

It comes to a point where it's just. Familiar. Almost cathartic.

Sometimes, it escalates, and they isolate themselves because there's a kind of charm in not needing to hold back, not needing to pretend, to throw aura and have it volleyed right back at you, hit for hit, match for match, to keep you sharp and on your toes and barely at the edge of your breath. 

It's a shot of dopamine to the head and it's sudden and intense, wholly unexpected and staggeringly addictive in its own right. 

 

*

 

There are no more disorienting illusions but it's like the slate messes with his head a little when he's around the Blue King.

Or, at least, Mikoto’s fairly sure it’s the slate because he’s not sure why else he can feel the hairs on his neck stand on end when they fight, why his hands itch, and his body betrays him completely.

It's all made worse because he knows,  _knows,_ that it’s not just him, can see it mirrored back in Munakata's eyes, in the curve of his mouth—and the bastard does so well to hide any human emotion but he can’t hide this, because it’s something—he doesn't know  _what,_  but it’s  _something,_ like a force of nature.

Kusanagi had once said, “You won’t let yourself fuck him so you fight him instead.”

Tatara had cleared his throat and looked as if he was getting ready to extricate himself from or break up an impending confrontation when Mikoto had shot Kusanagi a deadly glare and wanted to take that word and string it into several different sentences to throw right back at him.

Kusanagi had smiled though, sardonic and undeterred, and said, plain as day, “It is what it is.”

Mikoto doesn't like to think about that.

Never mind that it's the same build-up _,_  he thinks, when Munakata has him on the floor, on his back, and he’s grinning down at him, and Mikoto can feel his own teeth bared and it's more than predatory, it's— 

the same spike in adrenaline, same hike in breath and pulse, same high and same release.

He's got his hand around Mikoto's throat and it wouldn't take a lot; no, it wouldn't take all that much at all— 

The space in between them is small, but it may as well be astronomical. 

 

*

 

There's a bar that Mikoto frequents on the other side of town from where HOMRA is. He's been coming here long before the Blue King started showing up on Friday nights like he's been showing up to the other bars Mikoto haunts.

Sometimes, he feels like an illusion, a warped, distorted mirror image, everything that Mikoto was supposed to be instead but wasn't and it's fine. It's. He's not jealous. No, what a fucking ridiculous thought. He’s just. He doesn't know. On top of that, he's becoming something of a constant and that in itself is unnerving.

Mikoto is fairly certain that he's already met his quota for People To Give A Serious Shit About and, even as it is, he knows he’s pushing it. He’s got Kusanagi and Totsuka and Anna settled into even thirds of his heart and, it’s—good. It’s enough. It’s already more than his heart can bear, or more like, he’s already more than their hearts combined can bear, and he knows this and they know this but they carry him anyway.  

He doesn’t want, doesn’t need anything more—

Except—

The Blue King is out of uniform, in a black button-down tonight, with the first button undone. Mikoto formulates a half-thought which cuts itself off when they make eye-contact, unmistakable.

Munakata looks like he may be biting the inside of his lip, trying not to smile.

Mikoto knows that Munakata will still give him hell when he sits down next to him, which he _will_ , never mind that the next four seats are open.

 

*

 

There’s a day that they fight, forget who started it, forget why. Their clans are clashing somewhere in the distance and the swords are stark and monumental against the clear sky. The Blue King has him pinned to the ground with a knee on his sternum and Mikoto half gasps, half laughs and Munakata groans and pushes off, hisses, “You’re  _enjoying_  this.”

"So are you," Mikoto counters. "You always do. Deny it all you like."

"Am not." He rolls his eyes. "I’m not an overgrown child, Suoh." And as if to make his point or his maturity apparent, he offers Mikoto a hand up.

Mikoto takes it, only to pull him back down by it, “Are too,” he says, as Munakata is half sprawled on the ground, grumbling at his side.

Mikoto tugs at his hand and somehow he gets it or gives up; it's hard to tell but he manages to lay here, on dirt and rubble, beside Mikoto, and look up at the sky.

"What on _earth_ are we doing, Suoh?"

"Getting you to calm your shit for like five seconds before you go back to being their sweet prince and hero."

 _Getting me to calm my shit too,_ he doesn't say.

"King," Munakata corrects.

"Yeah, yeah, same difference."

"You know it's not," Munakata sighs.

"Yeah," Suoh chuckles. "Princes don't have as much fun." 

Munakata swallows and Mikoto can hear the click of it beside him.

"Say, Munakata," Mikoto drawls, as if talking about the weather. "Ever had a crack in your sword?"

He’s looking up at the tops of the buildings that frame the fisheye view from here, the sky a dusky orange in between, a wide gradient from bright blue on the east to the deep red by the horizon. He can feel Munakata’s gaze on him, his fingers tightening around Mikoto’s for just a second, easy to miss.

"No." He says, and then, "How can you tell?"

"Felt it. After a fight. Took longer than usual to come back…down from it or whatever."

"You need to be less careless," and there’s something in there that sounds almost angry.

Mikoto doesn't miss it, the anger or the concern. He wants to say to him what he had wanted to say to Kusanagi and Totsuka, every time they’d worn those closed, quietly haunted looks, but never could manage. _I_   _don’t know how._  
  
That said, things always came out differently with Munakata, more defensive and less careful. He doesn't worry about needing to protect him from the truth and so it is easier to be honest, ruthless, and maybe they amount to the same thing.  
  
"Never been good at careful. And it’s boring, besides."

“ _Suoh.”_

 _Definitely_ a warning this time. Mikoto grins. It would be fun, really, to poke at him about it if they were talking about anything other than his impending doom. Maybe even still.

"Well it's good that we have you to take care of the city, our noble King and Hero."

"Shut up," Munakata grits out.

"Can I trust you?" Mikoto says, taking the direction of this conversation and throwing it _off a cliff_.

"If you need to ask then—besides, we’re not exactly friends."

"Don't need to be. Trust is different. So, can I, Munakata?" Mikoto presses. "To do the right thing?" _To have my back_ , he does not say. "Because it needs to be you. You know that. You’ve always known that, from the moment we met. Maybe even before."

"You honestly don’t believe that."

"It doesn't matter," says Mikoto. "Or anyway, it won’t. I've never asked you for anything—" 

"And you’re not asking now," Munakata snaps. "Asking implies choice."

 

*

 

Later, Reisi will think about it, when Suoh had said, "You want to talk about choice?" And the way he'd barked a laugh. "Should have picked a better job. Oh wait, you didn't get to  _choose,_ and on top of that, for someone who tells me I know nothing an awful lot, sometimes, I think you missed the orientation, Fourth King." 

"Insulting me really won't get you what you want."

"It doesn't matter what I want, what we want. That's the whole fucking point. Anyway, you know," Suoh had said, "I'd always thought you'd soar at the thought of surefire heroism."

 _And what if I don’t want that_ , he'd thought. _What if I want to keep you instead?_

Who is Reisi to have power over life and death anyway? Except, this seems to be what Suoh Mikoto is giving him, slowly, quietly, asking for a promise and leaving him no choice. 

Even if he knows in his heart of hearts that Suoh is right. Choice is a luxury they cannot afford. What he wants is irrelevant.

"So when the world needs you—" Suoh had said, not,  _When I need you._

And Reisi had told him to stop heckling him, had felt sick to his stomach, and then it was Suoh who'd grown quiet, given his hand a quick squeeze, intended to convey apology and gratitude, because they both knew that despite whatever Reisi would or would not say, he'd be there. 

Even discounting for a second the thousands of lives at stake, of course, he'd be there.

 

*

 

Little by little— _(we're not exactly friends)—_ whatever it is that they are, that they were, begins to fray and crumble, right alongside Suoh's sword.

And so the old saying goes: they come in threes. Except, sometimes more.  

A number of things happen in a very short period of time.

It starts when Kusuhara Takeru dies, and Reisi knows that there are shadows at his back now.

It's the long, slow burn of the beginning of the end. No, he's neither ignorant nor immune. None of that changes the fact that he still has a part to play, a piece in the greater puzzle, the bigger picture.

There's a difference between lying and bending the truth. And are lies still lies if they serve a purpose? If they get the job done?

And if nothing else at all, Munakata Reisi has a reputation for getting the job done, regardless of the job. There's a sword in the sky and another at his hip and, sometimes, they hum in tune with one another, and it's more prophecy than song.

 

*

 

It's another night at another bar but everything is different now.

Munakata Reisi is on his feet, ready to leave, when Mikoto enters.

Except, Mikoto grabs his wrist in time, not even nearly with all his strength, though its an effort not to—

"Suoh."

There’s warning in his voice and a bit of a question, but none of the old amusement.

No, they've never been friends, not really. They've never really had a word for what they were, but ‘friends’ wasn't quite right. ‘Rivals’ seemed silly, childish, required more effort than Mikoto ever gave and less maturity than Munakata ever cared to display.

They were something like company and complicity, kindred spirits of a sort, even if by no will of their own. It was always unnamed and nebulous but tethering all the same, and well— 

Mikoto has never known how to ask people to stay. He thinks that he both loves and hates Kusanagi and Totsuka a little bit for never letting him need to. But this? Isn’t the same thing.

He doesn't really know what it is or why. Just that he needs— wants—? Can’t decide which would be worse but there’s something about it, about the weight of him, the space he occupies in a room, the ease with which he occupies it and how he is so much the same but also not the same at all. It’s quiet, thrumming in the background until it roars in his ears, like _If he can manage it so can you._

But also, _Who the hell are you trying to kid?_  

Munakata sits back down and they drink in silence.

It’s—not that he thinks about it often but there are _days_ where he’s tired and the sword above his head sways a little more, sings a little louder, and it's—he is—this is—good to have.

For all that there is always going to be a part of them that will want to tear each other apart, there's another that wants to open everything up, tear through the seams, through skin, flesh and bone, until there's nothing left but heart, open and exposed, real and red and beating and bleeding the same.

Just to know, to confirm, to ensure— 

 _You are real and you are here and you are alive and you are breathing; you are nothing like me but also everything like me and I can do this if you can do this, alone, together, and there's never going to be enough time, enough of anything, but let's do this for however long we can do this, for_ _however long time will carry, will let us get away with it._

 

*

 

They run into each other again, of course, a midnight alleyway chance meeting or, perhaps, more of that ironic King's luck, times two, and this time, it's Suoh’s question.

“What are we doing, Munakata?

It's like a dance with footwork they know all too well, do too well, frighteningly, horrifyingly well.

Reisi says the closest thing he has to the truth, which is, “I never know what I’m doing with you.”

It lifts a corner of Mikoto’s mouth, some kind of self-deprecating smirk that’s enough to give away that there’s yet another thing they have in common.

"What do you want to be doing?"

And this is Reisi's opening, isn’t it?

No, they’re not friends, and they’re never going to be anything else—not like that.

Even if Suoh’s fate did not grow more and more grim with every added crack in his sword, much like choice, that was yet another luxury not meant for kings, not with their chains, to powers, to repercussions beyond comprehension.

This is them, then. This is who they're meant to be. This is how the game ends, the curtains fall, the music stops.

Reisi looks at him and it's a look that says,  _I_   _wish it wasn't you_.  _I wish it was anyone but you._

Suoh looks at him and it's a look that says,  _It_   _was always going to be you. It could never have been anyone else. And I'm glad._

"What I can’t be doing," Reisi says, soft, and if it comes off a little wistful, he can’t help it. "You said you would need me, one day, but not like this."

Suoh blows out smoke into the air, says nothing for a long moment and then twists his lips into a parody of a grin. “Right,” he says. “Almost forgot.”

"Maybe in another life," says Reisi, because he wants to more than he needs to, just once, because just goddamned _once,_ he wants to say something, do something that he doesn't _need_ to. They can forget about it later. It won’t matter later. 

Suoh's gaze drops to Reisi's mouth before he tears it away. "Maybe the next one," he says, smiles, wry as ever. “Or, if that's another disaster, the one after that.”

 

 


End file.
